In a move that took many tech watchers by surprise, Google has decided to end development of its Wave collaboration platform. Will anyone really miss it?

Debuted in June last year, Wave created a stir thanks to its range of innovative collaboration features. The main problem, however, was that very few people could figure out what the heck to do with it.

For early adopters, it felt a bit like being the first person to own a fax machine. It was a great bit of technology, but you need others to get any value from it.

At its heart, Wave was designed to allow real-time collaboration on documents, spreadsheets and other items. You could watch a fellow waver’s keystrokes in real time as they made amends or rewrote portions of text. It was pretty cool stuff.

But once the novelty wore off, people started scratching their heads about how exactly they might use it to add value in a business environment. Many simply gave up trying and wandered away.

The lack of response caught Google by surprise. In a company blog post, Google senior vice president Urs Hölzle said Wave “has not seen the user adoption we would have liked” and so the company was discontinuing its development.

While it's a shame when any innovative technology is a flop, it’s equally important to be reminded that tech for tech’s sake is never enough.

Unless a new tool, regardless of how cool it happens to be, can be seen to add real value, it’s only ever likely to exist as a novelty.

Full marks to Google for trying. Now they must turn those very clever minds that were working on Wave to something that normal people can actually use.